It turns out that Dan Snaith, who is essentially the electronic band Caribou, has a PhD in mathematics. (According the math genealogy project he received a PhD in number theory in 2005, Kevin Buzzard was his thesis advisor, and the title of his dissertation was Overconvergent Siegel Modular Symbols).

I was aware of some other musicians that had PhDs, but I wondered how long the list was. So today I did some internet research and came up with the following list of rocking academicians. (I wonder if the School of Rock has a PhD program…[Update: I forgot that Yo La Tengo attended the Academy of Rock.]) I tried to get this information from reliable sources, but in the end it was all “internet research.” Please let me know if I’ve got anything wrong. If you know of others, leave them in the comments.

I was happy to discover that quite a few of these musicians are from bands I like a lot (Bedhead, The New Year, The Velvet Underground, Ladytron, Squirrel Bait, The Descendents, etc.).

Dexter from the Offspring was a PhD candidate in molecular bio at USC, but left to be a rock star. Perhaps like Brian May he’ll go back later. Then again, I understand May’s PhD work was in an area that didn’t progress much over the decades, so his old notes were still relevant.

I should think there are lots and lots of musicians with PhDs, though relatively few make their living that way, let alone achieve a degree of fame.

In the neuroscience lab I work in, there are two PhDs who perform occasionally. One grad student who sings. There’s a PhD at another lab who I know plays something. There’s probably a lot more that I don’t know of.

I had Dexter on the list temporarily, but decided to stick with people who finished. Also Art Garfunkel has a masters degree in math.

I was going to add that the implicit criteria for the list was more-or-less people who made a career as a musician (at least for a while), people in bands I was familiar with, and rock or electronica musicians. Obviously there are many, many PhDs who are musicians—hobbyist or classical musicians.

Chris Bowd of L.A. sub-popular bands Modern Industry, Flower Leperds and Abandoned – PhD in Exp. Psychology from Washington State University (1998), current Research Scientist at University of California San Diego, Dept. of Ophthalmology.